bayoeldolaju@gmail.com
+2347054305668
There is a pervasive CULTURE OF WASTE in Nigeria. It cuts across every block with which the country is built. There is no area, waste does not live in Nigeria and among Nigerians. But very unfortunately without any of our consciousness. That is why waste has become pathetically endemic in everybody, every day, and in every institution.
In homes where water runs, even through Bore Holes, the taps keep running while many brush their teeth when they might not need more than a cup of water. The same thing while washing dishes in the kitchen. An average home with electricity keeps the lights on perpetually even when not in use. Many homes keep their lights on to know when to shout: “Up Nepa” when power is back.
Some ladies and many young women may spend 10 minutes taking their bath but spend two hours or more on make-up, and dress-ups. Some men would wear or test three or four dresses and shoes before finally picking their choice for an outing. No one cares about the value of the times already wasted. Some households don’t have to measure the cups of food they cook for their families. And without a fridge or freezer, the leftovers go to waste. Many subsistence farmers during harvesting seasons, allow many food items to waste because there are no means of preservation.
Some Nigerians bury their dead with a monumental display of a culture of waste. Even for a parent or loved one who died of hunger, starvation, and lack of good medical care. Some young Nigerians’ unmitigated wasteful spending would borrow money on top of their life savings for a wedding which is just for one day but neglects the more critical issue of marriage for life.
A neglected and unprepared marriage, instead of lasting for a lifetime could collapse after the honeymoon. I have seen some marriages start collapsing on the dancing floor of the wedding reception due to a lack of understanding, compatibility, and adequate preparation. Just because the couple did not spend enough quality time together before marriage. What a Culture of Waste for such couples.
A General Overseer (G.O.) who preaches in his church with the routine of three to five men as bouncers disguised in suits
in front of his pulpit protecting the GO. He moves about in a convoy of at least five SUVs and rides in a bullet-proof limousine or Rolls Royle car in the middle of Security vehicles. He is worshipping WASTE or having no LORD as his Shepherd, or Jesus as his Savior. Such preachers are those who curse their congregants who couldn’t bring their tithes to the church. But this was only prescribed by God for the Jews to give to the Levites, who took it to the Temple in Jerusalem in the Old Testament.
Not one example of the WASTES listed above is the fault of the President, the Governors, or the local government chairmen. But they may all be guilty of not instilling the right discipline like a parent who did not bring up their children properly or decently. They do not “train up a child in the way he should go, when he’s old he will not depart from it”. Nobody is born with a culture of waste but most people learn by imitation or copycat, which we took from our leaders. Many Nigerians often copy the wasteful lifestyles of our leaders.
Our leaders are not just corrupt but preeminently GREEDY. Their greedy lifestyles have infected the blood of NIGERIANS like a virus. Otherwise, how can any sane Nigerian be stealing billions of dollars, which no public officer can make in a lifetime? This can only happen where we don’t have leaders as good role models with track records of impeccable characteristics like integrity, probity, decency, transparency, and honesty.
How many of our leaders as public officers or businessmen and women can swear by anything that would kill instantly that they made their first N5 to N10 million without compromising their integrity, honesty, and transparency? This is the very foundation of a greediness that breeds a wasteful lifestyle, that encourages living beyond their means. What do they teach or hand over to others coming behind them?
The governments are the institutions with men and women teaching Nigerians how to waste time, and resources. Nigerian people don’t have very good examples to proudly emulate or imitate.
The main focus of all serious-minded governments globally is good governance to eliminate the culture of WASTE. Like those that have been entrenched and have permeated the fabric of our socio-political and economic superstructure of politics and
governments in Nigeria. A good example is the Netherlands where its last Prime Minister and head of Government for the past 8 years, Mark Rutte, 57 and single, rode a bicycle home after his official handing over to the new Prime Minister on July 2, 2024. And will later take over as the Secretary General of NATO. What a servant leader! Such is rare in Africa and in Nigeria. If it were to be in Nigeria, where we celebrate the culture of WASTE, Rutte would have left the office with all the paraphernalia of his former office at the stupendous cost to the government he just left behind. As a Prime Minister Mark Rutte still had time to teach in a Secondary School near the apartment where he lives.
This is why I defer seriously from Walter Anthony Rodney’s postulation of “Why Europe Underdeveloped Africa”. Rodney was right and concerned about African underdevelopment. But innocently and unwittingly missed who caused Africa’s underdevelopment.
Rodney was born in 1932, a black Guyanese, a South American historian, political activist, and academic with African blood flowing in his veins. He was assassinated in 1980 in a car bomb because of his threat to NeoColoniaialism. He was African to the core, skin, and blood. He saw Africans as the “Wretched of the Earth”. He was concerned more for Africans than the African leaders. He however didn’t see African leader’s roles as NeoColonialists as we see them today.
The Japanese on the other hand, with their good leaders were patriotic and wiser. They sent their Engineers to America as laborers, with unfettered access to, and stole the car designs and technology of the American’s pioneering auto industry. But on getting back to Japan, the Japanese engineers did not adapt in totality, the American car models to Japanese needs. They changed the bigger sizes of the American cars to the smaller Japanese needs. By achieving this, the Japanese removed WASTE, by reducing the size, and cost, and increased the fuel efficiency of their cars. Japanese cars became more affordable to the poor Japanese just rising from the ashes of the Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
It is the Japanese size and model of cars that America and other car-making countries have adopted today. This is how Japan became the giant of the auto industry worldwide. It is the desire of the automakers globally to cut away or eliminate waste in car-making throughout the world today. This became the official car standard in America during the Presidency of Bill Clinton.
All thanks to the Japanese pioneering elimination of waste.
WASTE is therefore anything that consumes resources without creating resources or value”. WASTE is the greatest enemy of Nigeria’s private and public sectors. About 60% of Nigerian resources are willfully and gleefully wasted annually during exploration, and budgetary execution all over Nigeria. These wastes are corruptly directed and diverted to private coffers. Japan without a drop of oil is rich because nothing is wasted. Nigeria is one of the largest (11th) producers of oil and is ironically poor due to greed, stealing, corruption, covetousness, and avariciousness.
(…..to be continued in Part II next Friday ).
We are here to serve you with quality news and information.
However, your donations, reactions and advert placement are welcome.
Contact us on 08033783144 (WhatsApp)
08023469999
idowuadelusi@yahoo.com, idowuadelusi@gmail.com,
thepathfindernews0@gmail.com
Follow our reports also on X @idowuadelusi and Facebook (Idowu Oluwole Adelusi)